


Roach's Bad Day

by Mangoesaregood8



Category: Call of Duty
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Missions, OOC, Roach needs coffee, and a day off, angry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-07
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 07:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5658112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangoesaregood8/pseuds/Mangoesaregood8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I started writing this story in 2010, but people still like it so I thought I would transfer it over here. <br/>Roach is having a bad and it just keeps getting worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was about 4:30 in the morning when Roach woke up again. He was so desperately trying to sleep, but he couldn't. He had woken up 5 times before this. Roach rolled over again trying to sleep, when he heard the bugle.

"Ugh, not now…" he said to himself. Roach dragged himself out of his bed and shuffled down to the Mess Hall.

"Morning Roach," Ghost said wide awake.

"Hey," Roach muttered barely audible.

"How'd ya sleep last night?" Ghost asked. He seemed hyper, which happened very rarely.

"I didn't. I kept tossing and turning, and when I did sleep, I kept waking up."

"That sucks," Ghost said shrugging his shoulders. "I slept really well."

"Good for you," Roach said as he walked away. He wasn't trying to be mean, but when Roach didn't get enough sleep, he got very cranky.

Roach went and sat down next to Captain MacTavish, because he knew that MacTavish wasn't very talkative.

"Good Morning Roach," MacTavish said. He still sounded like he was half asleep too.

Roach just grumbled.

"What's wrong with you?" MacTavish asked.

"Couldn't sleep."

MacTavish just nodded and got up. Roach took advantage of his absence and put his head down on the table. Just as he got comfortable, he felt something get slammed on the table. He opened his eyes and saw a big coffee mug right in front of him.

"This might help some," MacTavish said as he sat down again.

"Thanks," Roach muttered as he started drinking his coffee. He took one sip and had to spit it out.

"What the hell is this?" He asked coughing.

"Black coffee. You're probably not used to how strong it is. Popular in Scotland."

"It can stay in Scotland as far as I'm concerned. Oh my god," Roach said. He could still feel the burn in his mouth.

MacTavish just laughed and got his breakfast. Roach was too tired to eat, and he put his head back down on the table and rested his eyes for a while. He still couldn't fall asleep. Roach went back to his room to put on his boots and vest and to get his guns. He had target practice this morning.

Roach trudged over to the target area with the rest of his team. Ghost gave his usual safety speech, and how you had to count all of your bullets. Roach nearly fell asleep. Ghost noticed, and decided to embarrass Roach by making him go first.

Roach sighed and went to the first range. Ghost had the targets pop up one at a time. Roach missed every single one.

"Looks like your shooting could use a little work, eh Roach?" Ghost asked elbowing Roach.

"Whatever," Roach grumbled.

Roach went back to the waiting area. Everyone was just staring at him. Roach didn't even care. He just kept walking till he got back to his bed. He put his gun down and took off his vest. He laid down and fell asleep. 5 minutes later, the alarm for deployment went off. Roach woke up and groaned. Why does everything have to happen today? He thought to himself. He got up and got all of his gear together. He met with his team at the hanger.

"I'll brief you on the helicopter. Move your arses. Go, go!" MacTavish shouted.

If MacTavish had to brief them on the helicopter, Roach knew this wasn't going to be an easy mission. He tried to suck it up and bored the helicopter. Roach wasn't going to be able to sleep on the helicopter. He was going to have to rely on an adrenaline rush to get him through the day.


	2. Chapter 2

Roach climbed into the helicopter, and sat in the back. If he fell asleep when MacTavish was briefing them, he didn't want anybody to know.

"You're sitting in my spot," Roach heard someone say.

"We can sit were ever we want. Go find another spot."

"Yeah, but Captains and Second in Commands get special spots," Ghost said.

Roach reluctantly got up and found another spot. MacTavish climbed in the helicopter after Meat.

"Where are we going?" Ghost asked. "This was a very sudden deployment."

"There is a possible nuclear threat in Russia, and Shepherd wants us to check it out," MacTavish said. "Ultranationalists are acting up again."

"Why not just send the NEST team in?" Roach asked. The NEST team was the one that was specialized in nuke threats. Not the Task Force. They normally just handled people and organizations that made a threat of themselves.

"Because the NEST team is preoccupied elsewhere with a nuclear threat. We are the only people Shepherd really has left to turn to," MacTavish said.

Roach sighed. "Where in Russia are we headed exactly?"

"Not sure. Its near the Georgian – Russian border though," MacTavish responded.

Roach groaned. The border wasn't that far away from where they were now. Roach would be going into a risky op with no sleep. He considered himself dead by morning.

"Now we are going to split up into teams. Roach, Ghost, and myself, Team Alpha are going in first to eliminate any immediate targets. Archer and Toad, Team Bravo, will follow and take up a sniping position to clear any remaining hostiles in the distance. Then Meat and Royce, Team Charlie, will get dropped off 50 meters east of Team Alpha's position, and will rejoin us 25 meters north of the drop off point," MacTavish said.

Roach wasn't paying much attention, and missed half of what MacTavish said. It felt like he was droning on about nothing.

MacTavish stopped talking and rested his head on the side of the helicopter. Roach did the same and dozed off. He couldn't stay asleep though, because of turbulence.

"Could you make this ride any bumpier, Nikolai?" Roach asked agitated.

"I am sorry my friend. There is much turbulence in the air today," Nikolai said apologetically.

Roach just grumbled.

"Roach, be nice. It's not Nikolai's fault," MacTavish scolded.

Roach didn't reply.

"Did you hear me Roach?" MacTavish asked.

Roach still didn't say anything.

"Roach, you will acknowledge me when I'm talking to you," MacTavish said starting to get a little annoyed with Roach.

"Whatever," Roach said under his breath.

"What was that?" MacTavish asked.

"I said yes sir," Roach said.

"That's what I thought you said," MacTavish said laying his head against the wall of the helicopter.


	3. Chapter 3

"What was that?" MacTavish asked.

"I said yes sir," Roach said sarcastically.

"That's what I thought you said," MacTavish said laying his head against the wall of the helicopter.

Roach really wasn't in the mood to be reprimanded. He knew it wasn't Nikolai's fault, but he needed someone he could lash out on.

"We will arrive at departure zone in 1 hour," Nikolai informed Captain MacTavish.

"All right, everyone make sure you've got all your gear together. Leaving ANYTHING behind," and he put extra emphasis on the word anything, "could get us all captured, or worse, killed."

Roach got up to check his stuff. His pistol was in its holster, and his ACR was attached to his hip, so it wasn't going anywhere. He had four frags, and flash bangs, and his combat knife. He was ready.

"Thirty minutes," Nikolai announced.

Roach got up and stretched a bit. He was a little stiff from sitting still in one spot for that long. His joints cracked in protested as he got up.

"Jeez, was that you Roach?" Meat asked wondering what the cracking and popping sounds were coming from.

"Yeah it was, you got a problem with it?" Roach asked.

"No," Meat said looking down. "Just wondering."

"Roach, you need to get your act together now, before you get put on kitchen duty," MacTavish said, clearly getting annoyed with Roach's ongoing attitude.

Roach rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything. He knew he was being disrespectful, and normally he would care, but today he didn't.

"Two minutes, my friends," Nikolai announced. Everyone had stood up, checked their gear one last time, and stretched out any soreness that they had from sitting in one spot. The red light for their jump went off and everyone lined up. Ghost was the first to go.

"See you on the ground mate," MacTavish said before he jumped.

"Sure thing," Ghost replied jumping.

Archer, Toad, Meat, and Royce went, and then it was Roach's turn. Roach jumped, and felt the same feeling in the pit of his stomach like he was riding the Drop Zone, only a hundred times bigger. Roach waited until he was about 1000 feet over the landing zone to pull his chute, only to find out it didn't work.

"Aw come on! Why today of all days?" He shouted to himself. Roach kept pulling on the string, but no matter how many times he pulled it, or how hard, it didn't pop. To Roach's relief, when he pulled his reserve chute, it opened instantly.

'Thank God,' Roach thought to himself. When Roach touched down, he disconnected himself from his chute, and stuffed it in his bag. Then he went to go find the rest of his group.

"Does anyone know where Roach landed?" Roach heard MacTavish's voice through his comm.

'Great, not only did I almost die, but now I'm separated from the rest of my group. Today is going just peachy…'

Roach heard something rustle to his left. He barely had time to level his ACR when Ghost popped through the bushes.

"Bloody hell Ghost. You nearly gave me a heart attack," Roach complained putting a hand over his chest to slow his heart rate.

"I've found Roach," Ghost said into his comms.

"Good. Looks like you all didn't land to far away. Start heading North West until you catch up with me," MacTavish said.

Ghost started heading North West, and Roach followed him. That's when the thought popped into Roach's head.

'Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong.'

"Not today," Roach muttered to himself.

"You say something mate?" Ghost asked.

Roach shook his head. Now was not the time to make Ghost think that he was going crazy.


	4. Chapter 4

Roach and Ghost had been walking for some time when they finally heard some footsteps. Ghost stopped and held up his hand as a sign for Roach to stop walking. Roach froze where he was. He prayed to God that it wasn't an enemy. After a few seconds, MacTavish appeared through the wall of bush they were following. Roach had the strongest urge to run up and hug MacTavish, thanking him that he wasn't an enemy, but he figured that that wouldn't go over very well.

"Right," said MacTavish looking over Ghost and Roach to make sure they weren't injured. "Let's go find that bomb."

"Team Bravo, do you have any tangos in sight?" MacTavish asked to Archer and Toad through his earpiece.

"No sir, You're all clear on thermal," Archer replied.

"Let's keep moving, we don't have all day," MacTavish said.

"Wouldn't it be that we don't have all night since its dark out?" Roach asked.

"Does it really matter?" MacTavish asked, feeling exasperated.

"Never mind," Roach grumbled.

Team Alpha kept walking until they reached a small building. They made it unnoticed, but had a few close calls with some wild animals.

"Ghost, calm down," MacTavish said when Ghost had nearly yelled for the fifth time after hearing a deer pass behind them. He was afraid that Ghost's constant yelps of surprise were going to get them discovered.

"You never know, it could be a spy deer."

MacTavish stopped walking and looked at Ghost.

"A what?" MacTavish asked not believing what he heard just come out of his Lieutenant's mouth.

"A spy deer," Ghost said emphasizing the spy part.

"A spy deer? Really, Ghost? That has to be one of the most stupid things I've ever heard in my life," MacTavish said.

"The Russians could have made a robot to look like a deer, so when we let our guard down, it sends them our coordinates, and then they can ambush us," Ghost said.

"Alright, Ghost. Whatever you say," MacTavish said rolling his eyes.

Roach was silent through the entire ordeal. He honestly couldn't care less whether or not it was a spy deer, a normal one, or whatever the hell it was. He just wanted to get back to the base so he could take a nap. Lack of sleep was staring to catch up with him, and that would make him more prone to make really stupid mistakes. Roach shook his head to try to clear away some of the grogginess, but it only ended up leaving him feeling dizzy. 

MacTavish looked over when he saw Roach shaking his head. "You feeling alright, Roach?" It wasn't often that one heard this much concern in his voice, but this was one of the rare times.

Roach nodded.

"Ok… If you say so."

Team Alpha had arrived at their objected, but Team Charlie was nowhere in sight.

"Meat, Royce, where are you guys?" MacTavish whispered into his earpiece. He hoped that nothing had happened to them.

"We landed really far away from the drop off zone, and are trying to find our way back," Royce said. "Don't worry about us. Just continue with the mission."

"You should have told me that sooner. What if something happened to you?"

"Sorry Captain. The area seems to be clear, but we'll let you know if something changes. Royce out."

"Looks like we're on our own," MacTavish said.

MacTavish looked up and saw a small building.

"This must be their base of operations," MacTavish muttered to himself. "We're gonna take this nice and slow. We don't need to arouse any suspicion."

"Let's do this," Ghost said.

"Ghost, you go around back and take out any resistance you find. I'll take the front door, and Roach, it looks like there's a door on the right side, so you cover that. Make sure to watch your six and check your corners."

Roach, Ghost and MacTavish moved to their positions and slowly opened their doors. When Roach walked in, he was amazed. The entire room was littered with blue prints.

"Whoever works here really plans their stuff out," he said to himself. By the looks of it, they had better Intel than the Task Force itself. Roach took the liberty to look around. Roach heard footsteps coming from behind him and turned to see who, or what was making them. Before he could see what the source of the noise was, he felt a sharp pain in the back of his head. He barely registered his head hitting the ground before the world went dark around him.


	5. Chapter 5

When Roach woke up later, he was sitting in a chair. He tried to get up, but he was tied down to it. When Roach tired to yell out for his captors to let him go, he discovered that they had also gagged him.

'Damn, they did a good job of restraining me,' Roach thought. Roach didn't have much time for thinking when he felt the pain in his head again.

'Ow, damn it. It feels like they hit me with a fucking crowbar.' Roach winced. His head was starting to throb.

'Where's MacTavish and Ghost? How long have I been out?' Roach tried to look at the watch on his wrist, but his wrists were tied behind him. 'Maybe they left without me, because I took too long. Maybe they got captured too.' Roach was starting to panic. He was alone, somewhere in the middle of Russia, and the odds of him escaping unnoticed didn't look so good. The odds of Roach escaping in general weren't looking too good. Roach hated it when the odds were against him. He tried to feel for the radio in his back pocket. It was there and didn't feel damaged, but Roach wasn't able to fish it out. If only he could turn it on and turn on the distress beacon, then he could at least have a chance of being saved. It would be a small chance. A very, very, very small chance, but it was better than him trying to get out himself. Roach kept fiddling with his radio until he accidentally pushed it out of his pocket.

'Great. There go my only means of communication.'

A door behind Roach opened, and a group of people walking in. Roach could only assume they were speaking in Russian, because he couldn't understand a word of it.

A man walked around the chair and stood in front of Roach. Roach could only assume he was the leader. The man was big, nearly as big as MacTavish, and intimidating looking. Roach tried not to let it bother him.

The man reached forward and took the gag out of Roach's mouth, to his relief.

"What is your name?" The man asked in English. His English had a heavy accent that Roach almost couldn't understand.

Roach stared at the man in silence, refusing to respond. His silence earned him a slap in the face.

"I said, what is your name you little cockroach!" The man spat.

Roach still was silent, but tried to hold back a grin. The man pretty much hit the nail on the head.

"So you think if you play tough man and do not talk we will leave?" The Russian asked. "I do not think so." He turned away from Roach, then quickly swung his fist, using the moment to hit Roach in the stomach as hard as he could. 

Roach wasn't prepared for that and the punch knocked the wind out of him. He gasped as he tried to catch his breath but made no other audible noises. He wouldn't talk no matter what these bastards did to him. Roach was trained not to give any information during interrogations, and he wasn't about to rat his team out.

Roach was hit in the stomach again and he winced.

'Ugh... Not cool man,' Roach thought to himself. He was certain that if he were to make it out alive, he'd have plenty of bruises and some internal bleeding. This man knew how to throw a punch.

"Since you are uncooperative, we will beat answers out of you," the Russian man said. He took his time to hit Roach in as many places as he could as hard as he could. Roach could feel the bruises forming as the man's fists connected with his skin. He was going to feel this in the morning.

"I'm only going to ask you once more. What is your name?" He grabbed Roach by the hair and forced his head up.

"Ah!" He wasn't expecting that. "Roach," he muttered out. "M' name's Roach."

"Your really name you idiot," the interrogator growled and hit Roach in the mouth. He was quickly growing frustrated with Roach's smart alecness and the lack of progress.

Roach spit the blood that was pooling in his mouth onto the floor. "It's Sanderson. Gary Sanderson. Are we done now?"

"Shut up," the Russian said.

"First you want me to talk, now you want me to shut up. Which is it?" Roach asked. He hated when people couldn't make up their minds.

"I want you to give me information without being smart ass," the Russian spit out. He pulled a gun from his belt and aimed it between Roach's eyes. "I'm in no mood to play games. I want to get this done quickly." The man looked down and saw a radio lying on the floor. "Now who do you work for?" He needed to know if he had a possible rescue party he needed to worry about.

Roach looked at the barrel of the gun and swallowed. He was treading some thin ice as it was. He didn't know what kind of information this man really wanted, so he didn't know how expendable he was. "I work for a lot of people."

"Then tell me all of their names." The Russian man pressed the muzzle against Roach's head.

Roach winced. His head was already throbbing and his jaw were throbbing, which was making talking very difficult. His lips were swelling already and he was having trouble making them move properly. 

"Who is your commanding officer?"

Roach stared up at the man, but stayed silent. No matter what this man did to him, he would not give his team away.

The man lowered the gun and started circling around Roach, looking over his uniform to see if he could find anything that would give him a hint. "One four one? I've heard of that before. Do you work for a General Shepherd?"

"There are a lot of generals with the last name of Shepherd," Roach noted.

This was getting them absolutely nowhere and the Russian man's nerves were running thin. He had received a message through his headset that he had strict orders not to kill their captured soldier. He was to be used as bait if the rest of his team decided to show up. As much as he wanted to kill Roach and end the interrogation, he wasn't disobeying orders. 

The Russian holstered his gun and decided to give up for now. He would come back when hunger and dehydration set in. This "Roach" may have been a tough soldier, but even the toughest men would break when they were on the verge of starving to death.

The Russian walked to the door and turned the handle.

"So you're just going to leave me here?" Roach asked. "You must be a shitty interrogator. I didn't think you'd give up so easily."

That did it.

"What did you just say?" The Russian man asked.

"You heard me." Roach knew he should have kept quiet, but he couldn't stop the words from pouring out of his mouth. "You're a shitty interrogator. I could have gotten the information from my subject in half the time.

The Russian decided to leave before he did something he would regret. He closed and locked the door behind him and left Roach alone.

Roach may or may not have been bluffing when he said he could have done a better job. The Russian wasn't too bad. Any other man might have broke. He was really testing to see how much they needed him to stay alive. While the man was good at interrogating, he was horrible at restraining people. Roach was tied to a metal chair, which could have been useful if he was being electrocuted, but he wasn't. Metal chairs were often flimsy and very easy to break. He also forgot to check ahead of time to see if the chair had any sharp edges, which Roach being the sneaky little bug he was, found one.


	6. Chapter 6

Roach maneuvered himself so that he could get the sharp bit of the chair between his wrists. Once he was situated, he tried to use the chair as a saw to cut the rope. At first, things were going well, and Roach could hear the rope being cut, but not long in, his hands slipped and he cut himself on the chair.

"Ow!" He bit his lip to keep from crying out more. No need to make his captors suspicious to what he was doing.

Roach continued trying to saw his way through the rope, but after his little bit of progress, he wasn't getting very far, and the blood from his first laceration was making everything slippery. The more he tried to free himself, the more the chair cut into his arm.

"This would be so much easier if I had a knife," Roach muttered to himself.

He tried once more to saw the rope apart with the chair, but his hands slipped again and the jagged edge of the chair dug deeply into his arm. He leaned forward to try and jerk his arm away, but he over balanced and fell, landing face first on the ground with a loud thud. The noise alerted his captor who all but ran back into the room.

"What is going on?" The Russian asked. He was still in a sour mood from the earlier interrogation.

He looked around when he didn't hear a response and saw Roach lying on the ground. He walked closer to get a better look. Roach's hands and wrists were covered in lacerations, one of which was pretty deep. The ropes that were holding Roach's wrists together were being stained with crimson. There was also a small pool of blood on the ground that had dripped down when Roach was still upright.

The Russian reached down and none too gently pulled Roach back up so that he was seated properly in the chair.

"What happened?" The Russian growled.

"Well... My nose started itching so I was trying to get my hand free so I could scratch it, but I leaned too far over and fell. I have a pretty bad balance problem," Roach lied.

"If you were that clumsy," the man said between clenched teeth, "I doubt you would be here right now, would you?" He stood up and left. He didn't have time for this.

Roach cursed and muttered to himself. He didn't think he was going to be able to cut the rope. He wasn't making much progress and he couldn't afford to cut himself again. He didn't want to think of how dirty the chair he was sitting in was. He thought about tipping himself over again so he could try to get to his radio, but it was probably dead at this point. Not to mention that his captor would most likely hear him fall and come rushing in again. Roach tried to think of other options, but he was running out of hope when suddenly he heard,

"Roach? Roach, can you hear me?"

'Was that MacTavish?' Roach thought to himself. He was about to respond when he realized that MacTavish wouldn't be able to hear him.

"I've found your beacon but you're no where in sight. "Where are you?"

"I'd tell you, but I don't even know where I am," Roach said to himself.

"Come on Roach, talk to me," MacTavish said through the radio. 

'I'd love to MacTavish, but I'm a bit tied up at the moment.'

Roach froze when he heard two men speaking in Russian outside of the door. He hoped MacTavish would stop trying to contact him soon or the Russian would take his radio, and that would be bad for Roach and the rest of the team.

Roach's interrogator walked back into the room just as MacTavish finished speaking.

"Who is that?" The Russian asked.

"Who is who?" Roach asked.

The man rushed over to Roach and punched him in the stomach.

"I am done playing games with you, slovich. Who was that speaking on the radio?"

Roach tried to answer, but he had the wind knocked out of him and was sitting there, sputtering and gasping for air.

"I'm only going to ask you one more time. Who was that?" The Russian asked. The temptation to kill Roach was growing strong and he was starting to think that the reward would justify the consequences that would come later.

"It was someone from my team. They're doing a mission some where else," Roach replied when he could finally breath again.

"We'll just see about that." The man bent down to pick up Roach's radio. He pocketed it and left, slamming the heavy door shut behind him.

"Great... Now how the hell am I supposed to get out of here?" Roach asked himself.

Out of desperation, Roach tried once more to cut the ropes on the chair and failed. The sharp edge of the chair jabbed into his wrists again and he gave up. His arms were already throbbing from their previous injuries, and the tight ropes around his wrists were just making it worse. They were digging into the raw and bleeding skin. That combined with Roach's bloody mouth and other injuries from his interrogation were leaving Roach feeling miserable.

Roach sighed and leaned his head back. He looked up at the ceiling for a moment before closing his eyes. Since he was going to be here for a while, he might as well catch up on his sleep. He was going to be in for a long night.


End file.
